1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the setting cameras of which are equipped with capturing direction adjustment capability, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for controlling a surveillance system.
2. Description of the Prior Art
According to related arts, when a user is operating a conventional digital surveillance system, some issues may be encountered. For example, when the user wants to modify configurations of a camera (e.g. a pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) Camera), the setting operations may be limited by a conventional control scheme, meaning the entire setting flow is unable to be completed quickly. In another example, when a camera in the conventional digital surveillance system is destroyed by a thief, the camera will stop patrol operations; therefore, the conventional digital surveillance system cannot utilize the PTZ camera to perform monitoring operations. In another example, since conventional patrol routes can only be set for one single camera in the conventional digital surveillance system, when a camera (e.g. a PTZ camera) in the conventional digital surveillance system is in an offline state, the conventional digital surveillance system cannot obtain video data of the PTZ camera, and cannot monitor the area in the conventional patrol route of the PTZ camera. Note that, in the above two examples, even though the recording operations of the conventional digital surveillance system can continue, the recorded data corresponding to the PTZ camera will not include any meaningful content.
In view of the above, related art techniques cannot properly serve the user. Hence, there is a need for a novel method to improve the control of the digital surveillance system.